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One of the three men accused of being the gunmen in a drive-by shooting that left three people dead and another two wounded in Rivière-des-Prairies—Pointe-aux-Trembles borough three years ago kept quiet as he was driven away from the carnage, the key witness in a murder trial said on Thursday.
Marlon Villa-Guzman, 28, was in the second day of his testimony in a jury trial at the Montreal courthouse where three men face three counts of first-degree murder and two of attempted murder. The accused are alleged to have killed Jerry Willer Jean-Baptiste, 29, Jafferson (Soldier) Syla, 29, and Molière Dantes, 63, and wounded two other men on Aug. 2, 2021.
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The victims were among a group of people who were celebrating a birthday and were inside and outside a ground-floor apartment on Perras Blvd., near 53rd Ave., when gunmen opened fire from two cars. Villa-Guzman was the driver of a Pontiac Grand Prix used in the shooting. On Wednesday, he told the jury he is serving a 10-year sentence for his role in what happened. He said he was behind the wheel of his Grand Prix while his friend, Clifford Domercant-Barosy, 29, one of the accused, opened fire from the front passenger seat.
On Wednesday, Villa-Guzman told the jury he believed a conflict between street gangs was the motive behind the shooting. This prompted Superior Court Justice Alexandre Boucher to advise the jury that any evidence referencing street gangs is inadmissible in the trial. The judge said evidence should be focused on whether the accused were in the two cars used in the drive-by shooting.
On Thursday, prosecutor Louis Bouthillier focused his questions on what happened after the trio were killed.
“There was no question of us talking,” Villa-Guzman said when asked what, if anything, was said as they drove away from the triple homicide. “I didn’t know what to say. Nothing was said.”
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He also said Domercant-Barosy stored the firearm inside the Grand Prix’s glove compartment.
“After that, I never saw it again,” Villa-Guzman said, adding he parked his Grand Prix on des Laurentides Ave. before he and Domercant-Barosy switched vehicles and used his Impala to get around.
He later explained that he parked the Grand Prix at different spots in Montreal North, including at an arena, “because I didn’t want to get arrested that day. My girlfriend was pregnant.”
Their first stop after the Grand Prix was left on des Laurentides Ave. was at a duplex where they joined the three other people alleged to be involved in the shooting: Jonas Castor, 26, Stevenson Choute, 23, and a minor who was charged in youth court. The witness told the jury Castor drove the other car used in the shooting while the other two opened fire from the front and back passenger seats.
Villa-Guzman said he and Domercant-Barosy joined the trio on a balcony at the back of the duplex. The witness said he was about 15 feet away from the others and did not hear whatever it was they discussed after having sprayed the front of an apartment building with 26 bullets.
“They talked and consumed cannabis. That is all,” said the witness when the prosecutor asked him what happened on the balcony.
“What words were exchanged,” Bouthillier asked of the conversation that lasted between five and 10 minutes.
“I have no idea,” Villa-Guzman said, adding that it appeared that Choute and the minor, a person he had never met before, did most of the talking. “It was their conversation. I didn’t hear what they said.”
Villa-Guzman also told the jury that Domercant-Barosy said nothing as they drove away from the duplex.
More than four hours after the shooting took place, Villa-Guzman said, he returned home sometime around 11:30 p.m. and checked for news on his phone.
“There were two dead at that point,” Villa-Guzman said. “I didn’t sleep a lot that night.”
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